perion" may have implied little on either
side, it was fulfilled at any rate, after these years of acquaintance,
by her consenting; to become his wife, an event which took place on the
13th of July, 1843, and was thus announced by him in a letter to Miss
Eliza A. Potter of Portland, his first wife's elder sister.

CAMBRIDGE, May 25, 1843.

MY DEAR ELIZA,--I have been meaning for a week or more to write you
in order to tell you of my engagement, and to ask your sympathies
and good wishes. But I have been so much occupied, and have had so
many letters to write, to go by the last steamers, that I have been
rather neglectful of some of my nearer and dearer friends; trusting
to their kindness for my excuse.

Yes, my dear Eliza, I am to be married again. My life was too lonely
and restless;--I needed the soothing influences of a home;--and I
have chosen a person for my wife who possesses in a high degree
those virtues and excellent traits of character, which so
distinguished my dear Mary. Think not, that in this new engagement,
I do any wrong to her memory. I still retain, and ever shall
preserve with sacred care all my cherished recollections of her
truth, affection and beautiful nature. And I feel, that could she
speak to me, she would approve of what I am doing. I hope also for
your approval and for your father's.... Think of me ever as

Very truly your friend

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.{68}

The lady thus described was one who lives in the memory of all who knew
her, were it only by her distinguished appearance and bearing, her
"deep, unutterable eyes," in Longfellow's own phrase, and her quiet,
self-controlled face illumined by a radiant smile. She was never better
described, perhaps, than by the Hungarian, Madame Pulszky, who visited
America with Kossuth, and who wrote of her as "a lady of Junonian beauty
and of the kindest heart."{69} Promptly and almost insensibly she
identified herself with all her husband's work, a thing rendered
peculiarly valuable from the fact that his eyes had become overstrained,
so that he welcomed an amanuensis. Sometimes she suggested subjects for
poems, this being at least the case with "The Arsenal at Springfield,"
first proposed by her within the very walls of the building, a spot
whose moral was doubt